Design Interns Club

We often hesitate to speak about money, especially as women in the design world. This hesitation however doesn’t make things better. It reinforces current structures, whereas discussing the labour politics of our design practices can actually be a first step towards change. Since we, as depatriarchise design, follow feminist values of social justice and transparency, we believe that no labour should be unpaid and nobody should work under precarious conditions. For all these reasons, we would like to share with you a new initiative which is aiming for more transparency of design internships: Design Interns Club.

Share your internship story

Design Interns Club write about their platform:

As studios treat their interns differently from studio to studio, it’s important to share this kind of information. The conditions vary from not so pleasant ones like not being paid and doing just monotonous tasks, to really nice ones when interns are feeling welcomed and are treated fairly. But as an intern, you can‘t get that kind of information almost anywhere.

→ That’s why we recently created the public google spreadsheet where interns can anonymously share their experiences. We hope it can help to raise awareness of the interns’ conditions and also to help those seeking an internship to chose the right place for them.

The public google spreadsheet is a growing database of lived-experiences of design interns.

We are following the current trend of salary transparency spreadsheets, like Art and Museum Salary Transparency or Graphic Design Salary Spreadsheet by AIGA. But we are focused just on interns themselves.

Our aim is to get the spreadsheet to the past interns who can possibly submit their experiences and also to those who are just seeking an internships, as we hope the spreadsheet can help them to decide. Above that we believe it can be interesting for anyone in the field, to understand the position of an intern.

The contributions can be submitted via this form. All questions are optional and anonymous and all kinds of experiences are welcomed.

For more information please contact us at designinternsclub@gmail.com.